Belichick noncommittal about allowing Giants touchdown

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Patriots coach Bill Belichick left the field in a cloud of confetti after the Patriots’ defeat last night in Super Bowl XLVI.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Patriots coach Bill Belichick didn't do much talking after his Patriots lost to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, 21-17. He gave his respects to the Giants, but was markedly sullen.

"First of all, congratulations [to the] Giants," Belichick said. "Won a championship, they're a good football team and they're well coached. They obviously played well tonight. Very competitive football game, they just made a couple more plays then we did.

"By the way our guys played, fought, fought all year," Belichick continued. "Fought tonight, and we had our chances. Can't fault the effort of any of our players. They played as hard as they could, we could have just played a tiny bit better. It was obviously a very competitive football game."

Asked about the game's first score, a safety in which Tom Brady was pressured in his own end zone before throwing it to the middle of the field and being called for intentional grounding, Belichick turned terse.

Asked about what plays the team could have executed better, he said "There was 100 plays you could be talking about and I would take a lot of them [back]."

On one particularly bizarre play, the eventual game-winning touchdown, the Patriots allowed Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw to score with 57 seconds left. Bradshaw appeared to stop at the 1-yard line, but with no Patriots around him, he rolled into the end zone practically untouched.

All Belichick could muster to say about it was, "right." When pressed on his thoughts, he said "No. [The] ball was inside the 10-yard line, a 90 percent field goal conversion [in that territory."]

Does he second-guess himself after last night's performance?

"Sure, could have done a better job in a lot things. There's a lot of plays out there."